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Just sayin’

 

One of the things intrinsically southern are roadside stands. In our neighborhood, we count down the days each summer until the Hyder’s begin harvesting and selling their peaches. Different varieties ripen at different times, creating the ebb and flow of nature’s offerings: Fire Prince, Summer Gold, all enticingly fleshy and sweet with a beguiling nod to T.S. Eliot.

‘Do I dare to eat a peach?’ Probably a dozen the first week, actually, Mr. Prufrock.

Elsewhere one can, near the junction of state highways 11 and 14, find the most flavorful tomatoes this writer has ever tasted, and as the season for summer produce subsides into the tawny light of autumn, it becomes boiled peanut season.

“I’ve lost my target weight,” observed a friend not too long ago, “but I’ve had to lose an extra 5lbs to I can eat a bag of those damn peanuts.” They are indeed addictive and I grinned as I drove past a few days later after spotting her stepping into her truck with a damp brown paper bag of boiled booty.

Here we are towards the end of November. The pumpkins are long gone and most of the stands are empty. Looking slightly forlorn in the elements it will be months until our local roadside stands are bustling once again with the traffic of neighborhood clientele and visiting tourists, driving specifically to cart home what they can’t find in their hometown supermarkets.

Or so I thought.

As Paul and I drove past one long-deserted stand it appeared to me, sitting closest to the road in the passenger seat, that I was staring at a sort of Santa Claus in a flannel shirt and worn jeans. If Santa traded in his rather impractical red velvet suit for Carharts and a John Deere baseball cap, you’d have the gent I was incredulously taking in. For to the north, west and east of him he had carefully stacked in substantial pyramids his offering to the roadside masses:

Angel Soft toilet paper.

Six rolls to a package.

And a box truck directly behind him filled with even more.

“Is he…” started Paul, turning his head to follow my gaze before we pulled in for my coconut cake addiction next door.

“He is,” I replied, needing not to let him finish. (But then, what else is new?)

Seated inside our local grub spot I couldn’t resist asking one of our regular servers.

“Did you see that guy out there selling toilet paper on the side of the road?”

“I didn’t,” she said, filling our glasses with tea. “But one of the other girls come in and said, ‘Ya’ll there’s a guy out there selling toilet paper.’ And I was laughing till she said, ‘He’s selling 6 rolls for $4.00,’ so I run out and got me some ‘cause $4.00 for a six pack of toilet paper is cheap!”

“Maybe not the best endorsement for the restaurant, though,” I mused. “It looks like he’s got plenty on hand should you need some quick after eating.”

We laughed and I attacked my cake with gusto. We talked about how crazy it was that somebody would be selling something as crazy as stacked of Angel Soft on the side of the road.

 And then, you know, as you do…

“Let’s get the check, quick,” I said to Paul, “because, really, $4.00 is a great deal for a six pack of toilet paper.”

But, alas! We were too late. As we backed out of the parking lot we saw the man pull down the door on the back of the truck and walk to the cab to get in. And I was startled at how deflated I felt. Truly disappointed. I’d missed my chance at $4.00 toilet paper.

For a bundle of six rolls. Why had I waited in the first place? I should have listened to Mr. Prufrock.

“Oh, do not ask ‘What is it?’ Let us go and make our visit.”

Pam Stone